metametameta

As part of my videogame analysis and criticism course, this week’s readings focused on violence, racism, and sex in video games. Two of the readings, which focus on violence and sex, were mostly from the mouths of game developers; they can be found here. Although these three issues are clearly contentious and controversial in gaming – from all perspectives, including that of the player, creator, and parent of the player – none of the readings, and indeed almost none of the readings I’ve done in this field, actually relate to how these games view women. Predominantly, I’m finding, as sexual objects, often devoid of the personality found in their male counterparts in the same game.cut deeper, keep reading>>

So pretty soon one of my most beloved game franchises will be releasing a small expansion/DLC via Steam. It’s to be set at 10$, and its focus seems to be primarily five new Native American factions. Those five being the Iroquois, Huron, Plains, Pueblo and Cherokee nations, some of the more prominent and, well, warlike of First Nations Americans. And by warlike I mean, not quite as willing to sit docilely by while European interests raped their lands. Below the cut: some thoughts and concerns about what Creative Assemblies has already mucked up with the franchise.

Any given sentence contains within its confines a host of meanings; that of the topical definition of the sum of words, that of an intended idea implied both in and around the meanings established through topical definition and, often, as a consequence of this composite, a potentially unintended meaning. I personally hold that any given writer or speaker is responsible for the overall understanding of his words, whether intended or not. Generally, this holds up well enough in the day-to-day life of reading and hearing and understanding through transitions between media types do not prove difficult. With this in mind, I’ve chosen to look at a presumably unintended implication of a particular computer game: Command and Conquer: Generals.